Pieces of April

Amazon.com

The plot of Pieces of April, a sweet independent film, couldn't be simpler: As a raffish young woman named April (chipmunk-cute Katie Holmes, Wonder Boys, Dawson's Creek) struggles to cook Thanksgiving dinner in her dingy, cramped New York apartment, her estranged family slowly drives toward the city, stopping now and then to question why they're going to a meal they expect to be not only bad to eat, but awkward and unhappy. The writing, acting, and directing of Pieces of April ranges from straightforward to clumsy--and yet the movie builds to a surprisingly potent emotional conclusion. Much of the credit goes to wily Patricia Clarkson (High Art, The Station Agent), who plays April's cancer-ridden mother with a compelling mixture of sadness, rebellion, and wistful hope. Also featuring Oliver Platt (Funny Bones), Sean Hayes (Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss), and Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher). --Bret Fetzer

Description

Katie Holmes is "terrific" (People) as the quirky black sheep of her family in this delightful comedy-drama that "sparkles with acerbic wit, original characters and genuine heart" (Variety). Academy AwardÂ(r) nominee* Patricia Clarkson gives "a career-making performance" (Boxoffice), and "the entire cast is inspired" (Film Threat) in this "moving, hilarious comedy" (People). Rebellious daughter April Burns (Holmes) has offered to host an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner for her suburban clan in her grubby Lower East Side apartment. But her attempts to create an unforgettable feast go awry when she discovers that her oven doesn't work. Now, asher weary family makes its way to the city, April must rely on the kindness of strangers to pull off the perfect meal and the perfect memory. *2003: Supporting Actress, Pieces of April

Customer Reviews:

Pieces of April.......2007-07-23

"Pieces of April" is a little picture with a big heart, both funny and sad--one of those movies that sneaks up on you. The frenzied comic shenanigans involved in pulling off this meal belie a deep yearning, as we realize April wants to use the occasion to mend fences with her family, and in particular, her ailing mother. Both Holmes and veteran Clarkson shine in their roles, with Oliver Platt also excellent as a loving father quietly coping with the prospect of losing his wife. "Pieces of April" is a quirky, bittersweet valentine to family.

If only more movies were like this. .......2007-06-27

A wonderful story, wonderfully acted. If more films were like this then I might be bothered to go to the cinema again.

spectacular low budget movie---a must see.......2007-06-06

Although plenty of directors morph family dysfunction into humour, this movie is hardly a comedy, but more of a voyeristic and amusing drop-in on someone's Thanksgiving meal. Pretty Katie Holmes is believable as the angry, rebel daughter who, on the most stressed out of all holidays, decides to reach out across the cavernous divide of familial relations gone astray for that big one: approval from the family.

The claustrophobic, gritty and low-budget filming during a gray November is the key for the viewer to make the leap of faith past the comedic possibilities and upscale cast and submit to a sense of bleakness tinged with only a shred of hope. In fact, had the movie been expensive and slick, it might have had an oil and water combo of comedy and drama that equals another ho hum Hollywood soon to be forgetten flick. Not so here.

The characters are interesting and faulted in their own right, but for all their downfalls it's possible to have a sense of forgiveness for them. Patricia Clarkson does a beautiful job as the ascerbic, dying mother battling chemotherapy nausea and resignation in between glazed donuts. Although the movie does not succumb to sentimentality, better get out the tissues for the ending.

A rare Thanksgiving treat.......2007-05-27

The transition from teen TV actress to movie star is fraught with difficulties. Katie Holmes, longtime lead actress for the WB's "Dawson's Creek," is the latest to attempt the move. Her early efforts showed a knack for picking quality material ("Wonder Boys," "Go"), although most of these films featured her in supporting roles.

With the ultra-low-budget "Pieces of April," that changed. Holmes plays April, a problem child who rarely sees her parents (played by Patricia Clarkson and Oliver Platt) or younger siblings. Now, she's trying to clean up her act, dumping her drug-dealing boyfriend for the more upstanding Bobby (Derek Luke) and inviting her family to her NYC apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.

Despite April's recent efforts to clean her act up, her family remains skeptical and less than eager to make the trek to April's abode. But, perhaps buoyed by the terminal illness of one family member, they reluctantly make the trip. The film primarily alternates back and forth between the family's rather eventful road trip and April's equally eventful attempt to cook Thanksgiving dinner. April's trials and travails include a frantic search for a working oven to cook the turkey in, a search that eventually leading her to an eccentric neighbor's home (played by "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes).

"Pieces of April" veers wildly between offbeat humor and poignant drama. It's an uneasy mix, largely because some of the bizarre scenarios seem forced. Worse yet, some of the comedic scenes are downright unfunny. Still, writer Peter Hedges ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "About A Boy"), making his directorial debut, compensates with some genuinely funny and touching moments. The film's gritty low-budget look also works to its advantage, adding a feeling of realism to the proceedings.

The cast, working for virtually no pay, is solid all around. It's a kick to see Holmes in a gritty low-budget indie shot on video. She accepts the challenge and thrives, giving her best film performance to date. Clarkson, who won a special jury prize at Sundance for her role, shines as April's mother, alternating between bitter rage and love for her family. Luke, who burst onto the scene in Denzel Washington's "Antwone Fisher," continues to show that he's an acting natural. Finally, how can you not like a film that finds an amusing part for Sisqo (of "Thong Song" fame)?

"Pieces of April" was truly a lavor of love for Hedges. Shot for only $150,000 and partly inspired by his mother's battle with cancer, it was a hit at Sundance. An often funny, poignant story about family dysfunction, it's packed with a sense of intimacy missing from most of the hollow big-budget behemoths crowding the theaters. And we should all give thanks for that.

Katie Holmes does something right........2007-04-10

I think I may have just seen a perfect movie. Very, VERY rarely does this happen for me, and when it does, I feel great. Pieces of April is a movie that I was putting off on watching for the longest time. Be it to watch some newer movie that I was interested in for a while, or some "classic" that only ended up disappointing me, PoA kept getting pushed to the side. After seeing it tonight, I'm ashamed to have done that for so long, as like I said in the first sentence, I really feel like this is a perfect movie. Not THE perfect movie, and not the best movie of all time by any means, but one that doesn't do anything wrong, or have a single useless scene. Off the top of my head, I can only say that about maybe two other movies, so this is obviously a very rare thing. I really didn't think I'd ever say that about a movie where Katie Holmes is the star. Now, I'm not the kind to dismiss a movie just on who's in it, even if the person is someone like Chris Tucker, but with Katie Holmes' choice of roles in the past few years, I wasn't expecting much here. It's about time I get blown away by something. Do yourself a favor and skip all reviews for the movie, and just give it a shot if you're interested at all in a fantastic feel-good movie, especially one of the few out there to revolve around Thanksgiving (without making it the main focus), you can't go wrong with Pieces of April.

April is a young woman leading what most would consider an "alternative" lifestyle. She's making Thanksgiving dinner for her family, who's coming down to visit her for the first time in a while. With the way she dresses, decorates her home, etc. compared to the rest of her family, it's easy to see why they don't think very highly of her. Her mom, Joy, has just returned from the hospital after surgery on her breast cancer, and with the way everyone else acts around her, it's clear that she doesn't have much longer to live. Joy may seem uppity, but it's mostly because she's sick of how jumpy everyone is around her. Her and her husband have two other kids- a son and another daughter. The son's into photography, and is sort of chronicling what could be their last family Thanksgiving, while the other daughter requires a pat on the back any time she does something good, and feels the need to correct memories that others think involved April when they were really regarding her. To make this even better, they're taking their very senile grandmother along with them, someone who doesn't know the names of anyone in the same car as her. While the family journeys to April's home, they bump into some trouble several times, mostly emotional. At the same time, April and her boyfriend Bobby are just running along a string of mishaps. For starters, her oven's shot, so she needs to find another to cook the turkey. When she finally does find one, she can only use it to halfway cook the turkey, and then needs to find another. Similar things happen, and only get worse for her. Bobby on the other hand, wanting to make a good first impression, is out looking for a nice outfit, but just as the others, he doesn't have an easy time. What's to become of this would-be car wreck?

While the plot doesn't sound too original at first, it's everything that happens after it's set up that proves to be gold. While April may look different, she acts "normal", and I couldn't see any reason not to like her/side with her parents. The series of problems she gets into with the turkey is hilarious in how bad they get. The first people to let her use their oven greet her with something that would normally be a dead joke. April knocks on their door, only to be answered by a woman who laughs when she hears that April has problems. Her husband asks who's at the door, and the woman proceeds to say that it's a young white girl with her whole life ahead of her, then mentions how she's going to love hearing about her so-called problems. We immediately cut to the same woman reaching for tissue and crying. Her husband proves to be an equally great character- he acts offended when April tells him that she's using store-bought cranberries and boxed stuffing. Just the way he questions her choices had me laughing out loud, which is something I don't do often when watching a comedy that's intended to be a comedy, if that makes any sense. The interaction between all the characters is what pulls this movie together so much to the point where I almost wish I had this sort of thing with my family when we were all together. I thanked god on the director/writer's choice to not make the senile grandma be the butt of a lot of jokes. Normally in movies, they'd beat the subject to death. Here, she's used only a few times, and when she is, it's not the typical stuff you'd expect. Only once does she repeat "who are you?" to Joy, her daughter. Joy tells her who she is, but then gets a response that was a bit painful to hear- that she knows who her daughter is, and that she's kind and wouldn't act like the way she is to everyone. And again, not a single scene in the movie is a waste. While I wanted to say that my only problem with Pieces of April was the short running time of 80 minutes, I have to take that back. No scene begs to be touched upon any more than it already is. I just wish it hadn't ended. I loved these characters.

With such a small budget, there's no way the movie's going to get some crystal clear transfer, but it looks pretty good still. There's some grain, giving a few scenes a gritty look, but I guess it helps the movie at the same time somehow. That's the only problem with the print I could see, but it's also worth mentioning that a few scenes were VERY jumpy, almost to the point where it was ridiculous. Just look at the scene where Joy goes back for the snacks for her family and you'll see what I mean. The audio is center focused since the movie's consisted of talking for the most part, and barely has a soundtrack. Everything is balanced and clear here.

There's not much in the way of special features here. First up is a commentary with the writer/director Peter Hedges. He does a fairly good job talking about everything from April's clothes to the number of times the movie fell apart before it got going. It sounds like he's reading off a piece of paper or something, saying some pretty precise things without much emotion, but I can look past it since he talks enough. I didn't appreciate him calling Alison Pill "The Canadian Meryl Streep" though. Comparing Meryl to her is silly. All the Pieces Together is your average making-of featurette, going over the inspiration for the movie, interviews with the main actors and more. After seeing the cast in the movie, then watching this immediately after, it was cool to see how different some of them look, namely Patricia Clarkson and Katie (even if we constantly see her in the news these days). While it's nice to hear the back story, this featurette is filled with too many clips for my taste, and is probably only about 6 minutes long with the rest being clips. Other than those, all we get are the trailer and some previews for other MGM releases. It would've been nice to see what scenes were deleted, even if I feel everything was perfect, or even longer interviews with the cast, but what we get's good enough. More extras would've pushed the overall rating to 4.5 stars easily.

The fact that the movie was shot in just 16 days and turned out as great as it did is really something. Add in a perfect cast of actors obviously comfortable in their roles, with a script that should've net this thing a few awards, and you have one of the better family-oriented comedies to come out in a very long time. It's hard to believe that this is Hedges' first film too. I look forward to seeing his other work, because this sure left me with an outstanding first impression. And hearing him say that he hoped people talk about life rather than the movie after seeing it, I gotta say, that's exactly what my girlfriend and I did after watching it. The man's got a gift.

Average customer rating:

If you grew up in the city...
Bay area memories.
West Coast Style Warz

Piece by Piece
Starring: Lou Butera , Norma , Twist , Elizabeth Grey Cloud , and Giant Killer Robots
Director: Nicholas Hill
Manufacturer: Heretic Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Indie & Art House | Stores | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000IJ7A74
Release Date: 2006-11-14

Description

Piece By Piece is a groundbreaking film that documents San Francisco's highly controversial graffiti art movement. A story told by those who live the experience, Piece By Piece offers an intimate journey into the most intriguing and misunderstood artistic movement of modern youth culture. By detailing the last 20 years of San Francisco's graffiti, this tale offers the most candid and accurate story behind the writing on the wall in Northern California. The DVD comes with a 48 page illustrated color booklet and includes the music of DJ Q-Bert, D-Styles, People Under the Stairs, etc

Customer Reviews:

If you grew up in the city..........2007-07-27

Wow. A beautiful film. Filled with old pictures, old stories, pieces, tags and throw-ups and is about the only history of the Bay Area graffiti scene from the early 80s to the present. The film plays out like the backdrop of my childhood, growing up in the Excelsior district of SF. From the early cholo writings, to the hall of fame pieces at Crocker Amazon and various spots in the city. To the rivalry between TMF and TWS. And the pieces that you would hear about through word of mouth as a kid and venture to. The Funk vs. New Wave debates. Up to my high school years when kids would just crush MUNI. To the birth and closing of psycho city. To the twist, KR, REM throw-up era of the late 80s/early 90s. To the present. There were so many crews back then that the movie could hardly mention them all. But as a general history, the greats are represented or touched upon: Dug, Bisaro, Deen, Crayone, Guess, Spie, Dream, UB40 (what no jamz???), Twist, Rem, KR, Giant, and plenty more. Should I go on? Buy this movie now. By two actually. If you grew up in SF this is a definite must-have and destined to be classic material.

Bay area memories. .......2007-04-10

Man this video is sick. I am from the midwest and went out to San Fran in the late 90's for a trip. I met a bunch of writers that are featured in this video so it was really nuts to see a bunch of pieces I have pictures of in the movie.

Anyway if you are into writing or have hooks into the Bay Area art scene then this movie is definitely for you.

West Coast Style Warz.......2006-12-09

I don't know if we could go back to the days of the original Style Wars but this new era is way different from back then. I mean back then people made two or three dollars an hour if even. Also the televison would go off all day and may show one channel and one channel only. I guess this is why people rack for fun. But this is Piece By Piece. This movie has music in the background and has picture stills along with it. It's still illegal and why people do this is still controversial. The original cry was vandalism and still is.

Average customer rating:

Pieces of April
If only more movies were like this.
spectacular low budget movie---a must see
A rare Thanksgiving treat
Katie Holmes does something right.

Pieces of April [Region 2]
Starring: Katie Holmes , Derek Luke , Oliver Platt , Alison Pill , and John Gallagher Jr.
Director: Peter Hedges (II)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( P ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B0001RVMA4

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Pieces of April.......2007-07-23

If only more movies were like this. .......2007-06-27

A wonderful story, wonderfully acted. If more films were like this then I might be bothered to go to the cinema again.

spectacular low budget movie---a must see.......2007-06-06

A rare Thanksgiving treat.......2007-05-27

Katie Holmes does something right........2007-04-10

DVD:

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